Very confused, watching vs tracking a post?

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When I searched for the answer I found a few posts talking about how confusing the terminology was and it seemed as though the developers were considering changing it to subscribe or something?

What is the difference between watching and tracking a topic?

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image805×304 23.3 KB

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As noted in the above screenshot, watching means you’ll receive a notification for every post made within the topic.

Tracking means you’ll only be notified if someone replies to you directly (by clicking the reply button under your post), or mentions your @username

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The settings descriptions in https://yoursite/my/preferences/tracking are pretty straightforward:

The image displays a list of categories and tags in a digital interface, possible for a social media platform or content management system. (Captioned by AI)
The image displays a list of categories and tags in a digital interface, possible for a social media platform or content management system. (Captioned by AI)810×678 55 KB

These settings are affected by the ones above it in the preferences:

The image displays a user interface with a section titled "Topics" and options for creating topics in the last 2 days, automatically track topics in the last 5 minutes, and tracking a topic set that is closed when user post in a topic. (Captioned by AI)

I also inquired with the Settings helper for a full explanation:

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